The Unlikely Missionary

Happy New Year... Almost. lol. 2023 was a year. I realized looking back that I didn't do New Years Eve post for 2023 and I didn't post in 2023 at all. I think that is an indication of the year that 2023 was for me. God you are so good! He has been faithful, loving, gracious but it has been hard. Not because God is not good but because the change had to happen in me. At the end of 2022 God gave me my word for 2023 which was rebuilt. At the time I thought it was just my life being rebuilt. I was fresh off a divorce, learning how to be a single mom and trying to pick up the pieces of my broken and fragmented life.  I was excited because I needed my life rebuilt. But God always gives you what you need, not what you think you want and what He actually meant was it was to be me being rebuilt; mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically. My character examined, my faith explored and expanded. Damaris transformed. When I think of the blessings in my life this year the one that is

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty.           - 2 Corinthians 3:17 Last year's word was birth and God delivered on that word but not in the way I expected. I thoguht there was to be a new business or revenue stream, a new home, or some other tangible things birthed in this season. However God was saying, Damaris I'm going to birth a new you. In the last quarter of this year I have seen God do an amazing work in my life. It wasn't physical, material things. I haven't moved, still living in my parents house. I don't have a new business, in fact I haven't been able to dedicate the time I wanted to the business I have. I don't have a new revenue stream either but God has kept me and my family which has been a blessing. Instead, He birthed a new mindset, a new outlook, peace and trust in Him. He birthed a new and deeper relationship with Him. He birthed forgiveness and healing in my soul that I have never had.  So d

  So now wrap your heart tightly around the hope that lives within us, knowing that God always keeps his promises!     -Hebrews 10:23, Passion Translation   I was taught that expecting God to give me things or do things for me was bad. We’re told to ask God for things but, in the same breath, not expect Him to give them to us. It was in the name of piety but how backward is that? Especially because it contradicts God’s Word. Then on the flip side, now we tell people to "Name it and claim it" but that leads to disillusioned Christians disappointed that God hasn't granted their wishes. God isn't a genie. That contradicts God's Word too. How many of us know the scripture, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you? ( Matthew 7:7-8) If this is true, which it is, doesn’t that create expectancy? Doesn’t that mean I should expect to receive something? Of cour

You are blessed. That is a fact. Whether you believe that or not. While doing the 100 days of Believing Bigger pillars of Stillness and Blessing + Obedience, my whole outlook on blessing was changed. We are taught that we need to ask God to bless us. As if our life is not blessed unless we ask and even then God still has to do the blessing. In this context, even as a believer, you question whether you even deserve to be blessed. And if you feel like you aren’t blessed you can develop a woe is me or even hardened heart. However, when you take God view that you are already blessed, that blessing is internal and not external; that it is not something God gives to you but it is already in you; it creates a whole new paradigm. Instead of thinking you are not worthy of being blessed because you know you are you begin to look for the blessings in your life. You walk with a different posture because blessing is happening, your not waiting for it. And because you are blessed, you can pou

 No elected leader in the US or otherwise was handpicked by God. Especially not Donald Trump. Truth be told God never wanted us to have a King or President or Prime Minister or Emperor or any other Ruler to begin with. So the very idea that God is picking presidents for a nation (the US) that is not the children or Israel, a nation that didn't exist when the convenent God made with the children of Israel was enacted is a level of mental gymnastics that quite honestly is equal parts impressive and sad.  The fact of the matter is: The children of Israel looked around and saw that their other counterparts had Kings and so they asked God for one. He didn't want them to have one but He loved them and He obliged them. That doesn't mean that God is still picking kings. The last King God chose was Jesus. Jesus is the King of ALL Kings. The Lord of ALL Lords. There is no need for another because...  NEWSFLASH : Our King is still ALIVE! This

I'll say it one more time for those in the back, God is Not a Man. God is God.  I saw someone on Twitter say, I wish they would refer to God in she/her pronouns.  This instantly didn't sit right with me. I get that we want to see ourselves in God but we are made in the image of God. Both man and woman. Who are we as the created to place this finite construct of male and female on the God that created the world by speaking? When we talk of God the Father we say he and him but He is not a man in the sense that we comprehend. God had a very clear role for men that this world has taken and perverted. Men were to be our protection, trustworthy, loving, a mirror of Christ's love for His church. The problem is that the church has made Ephesian 5 about women submitting to their husbands although God only spends 2 verses on that and spend 9 verses on telling men how they are supposed to love their wives . Because this World and man's creation of patriachy has so perverted the o